The continued fight for the free internet

Talked to a colleague earlier this evening about open access to scientific journals and told her about Aaron Swartz, which made me rewatch the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy – about internet freedom and the work Swartz did. Somehow it feels even more important today, because we’ve moved even further down the road of commercialisation and a ‘closed’ internet than when the movie came out about 10 years ago.

I really miss feeling optimistic about what the internet can bring to society – I still believe it’s possible, but wow, it feels like we’ve lost a lot of the battle. My Roman Empire is thinking about the utopian and dystopian perspectives of the internet – I ponder this several times a week. In the movie, Aaron says something that reminded me how much of this fight is up to us as users and, not least, as journalists:

There are these two polarizing perspectives: everything is great, the internet has created all this freedom and liberty, and everything is going to be fantastic; or everything is terrible, the internet has created all these tools for cracking down, spying, and controlling what we say. I think that both are true—the internet has done both—and both are kind of amazing and astonishing. Which one will win out in the long run is up to us. It doesn’t make sense to say one is doing better than the other, you know—they’re both true, and it is up to us which one we emphasize, which one we take advantage of, because they’re both there, and they’re both always gonna be there.
The Internet’s Own Boy, 1:23:45

The whole movie is, of course, free to watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ&rco=1